Review – Composing Myself – Elena Aitken

26Apr

Composing MyselfAuthor: Elena Aitken

Review Copy Provided By Author

Description:
Whitney Monroe’s not ashamed of the way her mother can work a brass pole, not really. It’s just that some things are better left unsaid; especially when your mother’s a stripper and you’re trying to get a job at a prestigious private school that definitely won’t appreciate her talents.

Raised by her grandma, Whitney’s always managed to keep her two worlds separate, even if it meant lying to everyone. And when Reid Phillips—a charming, sexy songwriter—becomes her not-entirely-welcome roommate, Whitney has no intention of telling him the truth either. But she wasn’t excepting Reid to see right through her and challenge her compartmentalized life. With Grams seriously ill, her mother’s life in turmoil and her dream job on the line, it’s more important than ever for Whitney to keep everything together. But that will mean being honest with everyone, starting with herself.

Review:
This is my first time reading Elena Aitken’s stuff, but honestly, based on Composing Myself, it won’t be the last. I was immediately drawn to the description, I mean, brass pole, aka stripper pole, in the first sentence of the blurb – who wouldn’t be intrigued. I started reading this at about 8pm on a Friday night, with every intention of only reading a “few chapters” as is my nightly routine. Unfortunately, that didn’t exactly pan out…an hour and a half later, I will still reading…I had to force myself to stop reading and go to sleep (otherwise my run the next morning was going to suck!)

I did find it interesting that the author used a flash-back method of telling part of the story – I’ve found that sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. For me, it worked in past – but not completely – it just needed something else as a wow factor (I hope that makes sense…). I did find it interesting how similar in character Whitney’s mother and grandmother were (although, i’m sure that they would hate to admit it) – it was their stubborn-ness and need to be right that led to so many of the trials/tribulations in the story.

I loved Whitney as a character, she was just so young and careful, but oh man, was her boyfriend a douche-bag…sorry, no other words describe him. I wanted to boink him over the head. I was so glad when Reid came into the picture. Anyways, i’m not going to be belabor the point, but the say, I really enjoyed this book, will be reading more of Elena Aitken in the future. Overall, I gave this story 3.5 but still debating on the rounding up/down for Goodreads.